Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to methods and systems for agent task assignment in a task routing system such as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system, or other similar system and more particularly to a team-based approach to skills-based agent assignment.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems provide support for customers of a product or service by allowing those users to make requests for service that can include a question posed by the user related to the product or service. For example, a user may log onto or access a CRM system provided by a manufacturer of cellphones and request information related to use of that device and that may include a question such as “How do I adjust the brightness of the display?” Generally speaking, these systems receive requests for service, e.g., in the form of a phone call, web page form, instant message, email, etc., and route the requests to a human agent for addressing the request and providing an answer to the question. In ideal cases, the agent is selected based on the topic of the question or request and a predefined profile of that agent that includes indications of the agent's skills and/or expertise. This skills-based route can be done by an Automated Call Distribution (ACD) system that is either part of or separate from the CRM system.
However, this “best agent selection” capability in skills-based routing systems is, in practice, rarely exercised in busy contact centers because all agents are occupied most of the time and assignment decisions are made when a single agent becomes available. Since only one agent is available at any instant, the assignment algorithm does not really have an opportunity to select “the best agent”. Rather, when assignment decisions are made for the single agent who is momentarily available, the assignment is most often made on a first-availability basis or, at best, the assignment algorithm is only able to optimize at a micro level and not at a macro level. Hence, there is a need in the art for improved skills-based assignment processes in CRM systems.